Friday, March 22, 2013

For five years she’s lived with the pain of
knowing her husband cheats on her. She’s dealt with the heart-rending rejection
by rebuilding her life around her work, becoming the first woman detective in
the history of the Moose Creek, N.C., police department.

Then she stumbles upon him. A man who reawakens
desire, who makes her feel more alive than she believed possible by pulling her
into a world of bondage and dominance, devotion and trust taken to a new level,
fear mingling with desire, a craving stronger than any drug.

Soon women start turning up dead in Moose Creek,
bound and tortured, tied in ways that Angela finds startling familiar. Angela’s
heart tells her that her newfound love cannot be the killer, her detective
instincts tell her otherwise, and her obsession with this new lifestyle draws
her back to him, even at the risk of her life.

LETHAL OBSESSION is a tale of sex and bondage,
love and fear, desire and suspicion, with an ending that will leave you
breathless, craving more.

LETHAL OBSESSION is available for purchase
during March for an introductory offer of $2.99

Angela
took a deep breath, exhaled, then opened the door and stepped in.

She felt
the blood drain from her face, the strength leave her legs. She stumbled,
grabbed the door handle for support. It wasn’t enough. Her knees buckled and
she leaned her body against the door jamb. Angela closed her eyes. Do not pass out. Do not lose it. She
flinched when a hand touched her shoulder.

It was
Tank, and his voice – his touch – brought Angela back to her senses. She stood
straight and turned away, facing back toward the parking lot.

“You
okay?” he asked, surprise in his eyes.

Get a grip

Moose Creek was a
small town – a fourth of its entire police force stood before Angela – and she
was the first woman ever hired outside of a clerical deputy. She had worked
hard, taken on all the most difficult cases that managed to spring up in their
town, went through the toughest training courses she could find, and it had
paid off. Angela had the respect of her chief, even the awe of some of the
younger officers, yet she still carried a small chip on her shoulder. Crimes
were not supposed to bother her, and she worked hard at showing no reaction….

…Angela
braced herself and turned back inside.

Across
the room the nude body of a woman hung. Her arms were stretched overhead,
wrists bound together and then tied to a metal loop driven into the ceiling. A
scarf was tied around her head, acting as a blindfold, and another gagged her,
holding what looked to be another balled-up piece of cloth deep in her mouth.

A
tremble ran through Angela’s body. Just
do your job. She looked around. It was a bare room – bed undisturbed, small
cheap desk against one wall, next to a low chest of drawers. On that set a
television, blaring some music video channel.

Angela
pulled two latex gloves from her pocket and put them on. Carefully, so as to
offer minimal disturbance to the scene, she walked across the room, stopping to
take the remote from where it set on top of the television. She clicked a
button to see what channel it was on, checked to see the last channel it had
been on, then clicked the mute button. She turned back to the victim and
stepped to her.

Dried
mascara lined her face. She had cried.
From the look of her face she had cried a lot. Angela struggled to focus,
to think, flashbacks playing through her head, the feeling of dread, of
helplessness, of seeing nothing but darkness, hearing nothing but the sound of
her own muffled voice and the slap of leather against her body.

Angela
stepped around behind the woman – red marks crisscrossed her buttocks, the back
of her legs, a couple snaking their way around her hip to the front. Angela
felt faint, ghost-pain stings from her own butt surfacing in her mind. And,
despite her fear, and revulsion of what she was now investigating, from
somewhere inside she felt…arousal at the memory of her own experience….

About Shandra Miller

Shandra is a mid-western gal who left home at 16 and never
looked back. Eventually she made her way to Florida, worked for three years as
a carnie and another three with a circus -- yes, a real, live, honest-to-god
circus. Traveled all through the South and Mid-Atlantic, town to town, on the
road eight months at a time.

Now she’s a small-town office girl, filing papers,
answering the phone. She doesn’t own a cell phone or a TV, she takes long walks
at night, lies in the grass in the day time and watches the clouds go by, and
she writes erotica. Blazing hot erotica. And mystery stories dripping with lust,
sex and suspense.

LETHAL OBSESSION is her debut novel. Her short stories
PRIVATE DINING and ROOM SERVICE, both part of the TIDES INN EROTIC TALES
series; and JENNIFER LOST and JENNIFER BOUND (part of the Ville D'Esclavage
TALES) are all available on Amazon.com.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

So, Spring is in the
air… this is a time for rebirth and new beginnings according to legend and
general consensus. But where did this concept really start to become a part of
popular culture. As many of you know, I am very fond of Greek Mythology, so I
thought we’d have a peek at their legend/myth as explanation. It’s a nice one,
I think!

WINTER AND SPRING: THE LEGEND OF PERSEPHONE

Why do Winter and Spring
arrive? How does the changing of the seasons really work? We could consider the
scientific way, or we can look at the more romantic and fun explanation that
Greek mythology gives us! The reason for winter and spring as according to Greek
mythology is this:

Demeter, Goddess of
agriculture and daughter of Cronus and Rhea, had a daughter named Persephone
(by way of Zeus). One day she was snatched away by Hades, God of the
Underworld, to live with him in down in the Underworld. No one knew what had
happened to Persephone. Her mother, Demeter, heard her cries but knew not where
she was. Distressed by this disappearance, Demeter left all the harvest alone
and as a result, mass famine struck. One day while Apollo was making his rounds
through the underworld as he does through the sky, he spotted Persephone down
there and reported the finding to Zeus. Zeus then sent Hermes, the messenger
god, to bring Persephone back. Unfortunately, Persephone ate six pomegranate
seeds given to her by Hades in the land of the dead. This trickery bound her to
return to the underworld for six months every year. When Persephone returns
from the underworld each year, Demeter makes the earth bloom and grow
beautifully which is the time of year we know as Spring and Summer. When
Persephone returns to the underworld, Demeter stops and Fall & Winter
arrive.

A series
of killings has the Toronto Police Department in turmoil. The press has labelled
the killer a “werewolf” and hysteria is on the rise in the heat of the summer…
Detective Damien Knightley is the lead investigator, but he’s got secrets of his
own that need guarding in this very public investigation. Knightley is a
vampire, and as the case gets more complex, what he discovers has him both
baffled and worried.

In the
Northern Ontario town of Brighton, a visionary woman finds a stranger
outside her door, and because he’s near death she brings him into her home. In
the wake of her kindness, dreams and visions expose things that terrify her. The
stranger is a wolf, and history is about to repeat itself and explode in violent
death if they can’t reach Toronto and capture a renegade on a
blood-hunt.

As Damien
recalls a love from a century ago, the threads of time are being pulled
together, joining the past and the present. The beautiful woman he is falling in
love with is bringing back memories he’d rather forget, and when the killer is
finally revealed, there are more questions than answers in the
identity…

As part of the Spring is in the Air hop, I’ll be giving one winner here a book from my backlist – winner’s choice. BUT to be eligible for my prize, and the GRAND PRIZE of a package from XoXo Publishing™ - you MUST leave your email address in your comment. Good luck, and enjoy the rest of the hop, there are some great folks on this adventure!!!

Life is full of choices. Siobhan thought she’d never see another Sidhe. Until a blue dragon the size of a small mountain falls into her life, wounded and ailing. When the beast turns into a man, Siobhan has a choice: heal him at the cost of exposing her greatest secret, or let him die. Fallon and Dearg thought they’d spend their lives as Seelie Knights, but treachery of the heart brings a reviled fate crashing upon them. They’ve become the first dragon shifters in fae existence, and they have to trust Siobhan in order to survive. Now, she has to choose: Fallon, Dearg…or both?

Excerpt:

Fallon pumped his legs, racing across the meadow under a halo of arrows poised for his back. The Seelie Queen’s archers claimed to be the strongest, fastest, the best.

He was stronger, faster.

The Queen had no one to blame but herself. She cursed him for his “serpentine tongue,” or so she’d once referred to the organ dominating his mouth. Once, she’d used the term as an endearment. Now, she cursed him. Once upon a time, when they’d met in what he’d mistaken for love, turned out to be lust. Lust for power, greed and good, hard sex. No more.

Her loss, his gain. The truth had come out. For the better, anyway. Next time they’d meet, he’d kill her. He possessed no other choice. His serpentine tongue had spoken the words proclaiming her impending death. Failure to keep his promise was to be foresworn from court, if not killed for being an oathbreaker by powers much greater than he.

The first mattered little to him. The second, well, he wasn’t so sure.

The Queen’s Knights, his brothers in arms, wove through the archers on their winged steeds, some of them attempting to ensure the latter option.

“Fallon, halt!” Garbhan, Captain of the Queen’s Knights, barreled ahead of the others. He cried his plea over the thunderous legion of hooves. “If you stop this flight, I could speak to Druantia about a pardon.”

Fallon tossed his blue-black hair over one bare shoulder. He sneered. “Do not make promises you cannot keep. You might be fucking her royal highness, but she will not forgive this.”

Garbhan growled something lost to the wind. No matter. Fallon was disinterested in empty promises.

His lungs burned, his thighs screamed, tossing the shredded material of his breeches that hung precariously over his hips. He’d never cross the meadow, into the lush undergrowth of the forest. They’d catch him on their magickal steeds long before.

One way out for the likes of him.

He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. He hated his enforced ability, but he’d have to use his other form. He jackknifed in mid-leap, snarling at the horses. Garbhan’s reared, kicking out his front legs. Fallon dodged the sharp slashes aimed for his chest.

“Where is Dearg?” Garbhan spat on the ground, as if to rid himself of the distaste of Fallon’s best friend. Nervously, he glanced at archers, who fell back while their Captain conversed. “At least let us bring him back, and I will allow you a full day’s head start.”

Fallon struggled to calm himself. The shift tearing through his body took far longer than it had last time, wasting precious seconds. “I do not know where he went after we left the castle. We went our separate ways.” Too close to a lie. The truth, they’d been forced apart.

Maghnus, always an overzealous guard, dropped from his Pegasus. “Silver tongued beast, tell the Captain of the Queen’s Knights where your friend ran with his tail between his legs.”

“I cannot tell you what I do not know,” Fallon wheezed through the burning fury inside his belly that knew no end. Oh, for Goddess’ sake! Why would the change not come upon him?

Maghnus swung his sword, slicing through Fallon’s ribs. His flesh split, a ripe melon under the blistering sun. He threw his head back and roared, the noise gaining volume and momentum, bleeding into a bellow that shook the trees ringing the meadow.

His eyes burned as his face elongated. His back arched, cracked. Size tripled, then that quadrupled. He towered above them, half man, half beast as the minute changes reformed his body. At last, it was done.

His snout billowed steam. The Knights fell back, not knowing the secret of his form. Let them think he could blow fire.

“A dragon!” An archer squealed.

The Queen’s secret, for good or bad, had come to light. Fallon startled that the rumors had not yet filled every ear at the Seelie court. For he had been cursed in front of all the nobility. Gossipers and liars, the lot of them.

Garbhan cut the air with his sword, toward Maghnus. He showed not a care. Unlike the others, the Captain knew Fallon kept his wits, even as a dragon. “Have not a fear! This cretin had angered him.”

Fallon hesitated to kill his fellow Knights. They’d grown and trained together, fought for one another. The archers mattered not to him.

“That is a Sidhe no longer!” Maghnus stumbled back, as Fallon rose on his muscled hind legs. “This is what the Queen has done to him?”

“You were there, Maghnus.”

“He did not do this at court!”

Fallon spread his wings across the meadow. His long, thick neck curled over Maghnus, cutting him off from his peers. One crystalline triple iris complete with slit pupil caught the Knight’s.

He didn’t bother to perform a communication charm. His face said it all.

The Knight shuddered, his sword falling to the ground. He’d wet himself, the reek pungent to his oversensitive sense of smell. Inside, Fallon wondered how he’d ever stomached the wretch. His death would be a mercy to his brothers. A true Knight hath no fear of any man or beast.

Blood gushed between them, running down Fallon’s metallic green chest. The shift had ripped open the wound, enlarged the serrated edges. Not the first time he’d been wounded in battle. Not the last either. He’d see this to be true.

Fallon whipped his barbed tail, colliding with Maghnus’ side, tearing through his armor. Maghnus tumbled through the air into three horses, including his own. Fallon uttered a shattering roar, a gust of steam. The warriors scrambled, screaming “fire.”

How little they knew. Not even the Captain understood. Fallon was a water dragon. Ice, to the fire that was Dearg.

He leapt, and damned near fell back to the ground. Perhaps, his wounds surpassed his previous assessment. His limbs deadened, the bone structure of his wings threatened not to keep him airborne for longer than a minute or two. That’s all he needed.

The knights made no move to follow him, as they calmed their steeds.

Arrows flew, tiny sticks to a beast such as him. The beast barely felt them enter his hide.

Monday, March 11, 2013

Thank you Denysé, for having me on the Bound By
Passion blog. It’s so great to be here to talk about the hero in my new release
MASQUE.

Let’s face it.
Women generally don’t want a perfect man for a love interest, especially
in a romance novel. Even better if it’s
an erotic romance novel. As I created the character of Synn MacAllistair, the
hero of MASQUE, I knew he had to have a flaw. After all, he is aristocratic,
tall, muscular, has long brown hair and grey eyes with shards of sapphire blue,
so the flaw was definitely not on the outside. Well, except for that black burn
mark on his chest, but we won’t go there.

It wasn’t difficult to find Synn’s problem
because like most heroes, he was honorable to the core. You see, unlike many
people we encounter who don’t take responsibility for their actions, Synn took
responsibility for things he had no control over. Have you ever met someone
like this? I have, and to say this hyper-honorability can be frustrating would
be an understatement.

Of course, that is not Synn’s only flaw. Due to the
weight of this guilt he has carried around with him for 150 years (no he’s not
a vampire), he cannot see beyond rectifying his mistake by helping his friends to
cross over (yes, the friends are ghosts).
The problem is, nothing he has tried has worked. Unfortunately for the
modern-day Rena, Synn cannot see beyond his need to fix what he believes he
broke. I’m sure you have met someone like this, right? Someone who is so fixated on one goal that
other parts of his or her life completely fall apart?

Yes, this is my hero. A self-tortured man who
believes the only way to help his friends is to bring the heroine through the
seven rooms of the Masque. Each room is a different sexual experience Synn is
determined to complete with her. Hmm, I think I could forgive the man his few
flaws to help him out. J
Could you?

For a chance to win a beautiful Venetian mask
made in Italy, be sure to leave a comment along with your contact information. Good luck!

Excerpt
from MASQUE:

At the top,
a wooden door stood open and she stepped outside into the fading light of day,
but it wasn’t the sunset that arrested her attention. Synn stood, one foot
braced on an embrasure, one hand resting on the crenellated stone of the battlement.
The breeze lifted his long brown hair away from his face and off his
shoulders…his very bare shoulders.

Oh shit. She
hadn’t expected his back to be so broad and muscular. His biceps stood in stark
relief as if he worked construction. Below his narrow waist, his firm ass and
muscular thighs were outlined by his tight gray pantaloons, if she had the term
right. She’d bet the boots he wore were Hessians because those were the only
nineteenth-century boots she’d heard of that rose to the knee. To call the man
handsome would be to belittle his sculpted perfection, and her heart increased
its beat as raw, sexual attraction rifled through her limbs.

He brought
his arm down, causing the muscles in his back to ripple before he turned to
catch her staring.

Her gaze
shifted to his eyes and for a moment they revealed such heartbreaking anguish
that all sexual heat fled and her stomach tightened into a sorrowful knot. He
shuttered his gaze and smirked. “Were you looking for something?”

Confused,
and more than a little distracted by the man’s emotions and his highly defined
pectoral muscles, one of which had a fist-sized dark spot, she grasped for
logic. “Yes, the sunset.”

“Ah, then
you are just in time.” He stepped to the side, bowed and swept his hand toward
the battlement. “It’s ready for you, my lady.”

She searched
his eyes for any sign that he made fun of her, but found only sincerity. “Thank
you.”

She stepped
up to the place next to him as indicated and gazed across the town. As she
suspected, the ocean was a few blocks past the shops and it glittered red as
the setting sun shimmered off its dark surface, its waves lifting and lowering
the dazzling color as it moved.

“This is
breathtaking.”

“Yes, it
is.”

His tone
made her glance up, and she found him staring at her. She swallowed.

He released
her hair from its clip and the breeze swept it from her face. She couldn’t have
looked away from his eyes even if the sun had turned green.

He cupped
her jaw with his hand. “You are exquisite.”

Her breath
hitched at his words, but her mouth parted as his face drew closer to hers.
When their lips were but a breath away, he spoke again. “You are made for
passion, Rena.”

She let her
eyes close, his words shooting pure desire through her, and then his full lips
were upon hers. It was not a gentle kiss, but neither was it harsh or
demanding, simply controlled. The hand holding her face encouraged her to open
her lips and she did.

She grasped
his biceps as his tongue swept into her mouth to explore. He tasted like
cinnamon spice but not sweet. When his arm snaked around her waist and pulled
her closer, she entwined her arms around his neck, her body tight against his
hard one. Unable to stem the growing need building inside her, she pressed her
hips into his. A long, hard cock greeted her. She wanted him.

Synn groaned
and released her, stepping away.

She grabbed
at the embrasure to keep herself from falling on her ass. What the hell was
that?

He turned
toward the sunset again, his body in perfect profile, his hands clenched at his
sides.

Not sure if
she was upset because he stopped the kiss or because he started it in the first
place, she gritted her teeth. Her body ached for release and she wanted him to
provide it, no matter what her mind said. Her sexual frustration gave her a
bravery she rarely had. “Why did you stop kissing me?” She had hoped to sound
matter-of-fact, but hurt crept into her voice. Did he find her beneath him?

He remained
motionless, speaking to the horizon. “If I didn’t stop now, I wouldn’t be able
to. You are not ready for me yet.”

Monday, March 4, 2013

The shock of the cool chair against her
bare skin sent another shiver through Cinthya. But before she could recover
completely, Rick had most of her clothes off and was halfway through tying her
ankles back to the legs of the chair, this time to the back legs, leaving her
thighs spread wide.

Her heartbeat doubled when his fingers
began a slow, barely perceptible pattern of caressing her legs, starting at the
back of her ankles and gradually moving upward. The room actually did a crazy
spin when Rick bent his head and started following the path of his roaming
hands with his lips.

Cinthya squirmed with renewed urgency as
she tried to free herself from the surprisingly strong bonds. Rick’s tongue
barely touched the wet folds between her legs, but the featherlike contact
created a spasm of reaction in her. She shuddered and gasped, the sound
becoming a tiny moan when he repeated the gesture with a slow, lingering
sensuality. Then he leaned back to look up into her eyes.

“Why…?” She wasn’t even sure what it was
she wanted to ask as the words got caught in another trembling twitch. His
fingers were smoothing gentle touches on the inner skin of her thighs.

“Because I love you, Cindi,” he answered
around a huge smile, supplying his own meaning to the gasped query.

She looked down to watch his hand brushing
over the dark-gold thatch of hair between her thighs and tried to thrust into
the contact. Frustration played through her when he refused to accommodate her.

“Rick? Do you think maybe you could love me
a little faster?” The words were expelled like a choked breath of air and her
face warmed with the heat of her embarrassment as well as her passion.

“How fast are you thinking, sweetheart?”
His grin was on the verge of dissolving into laughter.

His finger finally delving into her wet
heat effectively cut off any attempt at an answer, her hips again shifting into
his touch. He probed deeper into her and started a slow, gentle rhythm, his own
breath becoming audibly strained when her head fell back and her lips parted
with a breathy sigh.